Five shots you can only get with a 360 camera

From sweeping views to baby’s first steps, 360 photos help you get in the picture.

Major camera companies and startups are in a race to build the perfect 360-degree camera, producing a wave of increasingly affordable and easy-to-use technology. (Check out our 360 Camera Buying Guide to see some of the best on the market.)

With every iteration, these devices get one step closer to being seamlessly integrated into our smartphones — which will change the way we think about photography and what it’s capable of capturing. Here, we showcase five different kinds of shots you can only get with a 360-degree camera.

Vacation or vista ‘surroundies’

You know the dilemma: You’re on vacation at an awesome viewpoint. Do you a.) take a picture of what you’re seeing (which inevitably looks like an amateur postcard shot), b.) take a selfie in front of said awesome view, which means neither a great picture of the view or yourself/friends, or c.) ask a stranger to take a photo of you and hope they manage to get you and the view in the shot? None of the options are ideal for capturing both the view and everyone who’s there, right? Well, 360 cameras change everything.

With a 360, you don’t have to worry about compressing your shot it into a 4 x 6 format. The resulting image lets you look up, down, and all around — which means you can capture the entirety of stunning views and vistas as you witness them on your vacation that include you, your family, and your friends in the picture. Think of it as a ‘surroundie’ rather than a selfie.

The bonus? Viewing the 360 photo in any VR viewer makes you feel like you’re right back there, friends and all. Talk about reliving your vacation!

Milestone events you want to capture and experience at the same time

One of the intractable problems of attempting to document important moments of your life — whether it’s a graduation, wedding, birth, or baby’s first steps — is that you have to decide: do I want to enjoy and experience the moment in real-time or document it to look back on in the future? If it’s the latter, you have to pull yourself out of the moment to record it.

The genius of a 360-degree camera is that since you don’t have to frame anything, you just push a button without removing yourself from the moment. It captures everything and everyone without you having to look through a viewfinder. Since it’s 360°, as long as you hit ‘record,’ you never have to worry whether you got the moment, since everything’s in the frame.

Everyday moments with kids — with you in the picture, for a change

Quick question if you’re a parent: How many photos of your kids are on your phone? Probably lots — maybe even thousands. How many of those photos are you in? Probably only a handful at most.

Parents of young children often lament that while they photograph their kids all the time, they have so few pictures of them together having fun in the moment. Once again, this is a great example of a ‘surroundie” — with a 360-degree camera, you can quickly and simply take a photo of you with your kids in real-time without having to pause the action and reframe the shot into a selfie or posed family photo. Dad (or mom) no longer needs to be missing from all your family photos anymore.

Virtual tours/virtual travel

Perhaps one of the biggest promises of 360-degree cameras is their ability to capture immersive video that lets you experience a place in 360°. Whether or not you view these videos in a virtual reality headset, they can give you a full spherical view of a location or moment in time — think about the implications of these virtual tours for viewing real estate, managing sites that are a flight away, capturing historical moments, and bringing the world to those who are unable to go out and experience it themselves.

Around-the-table ‘surroundies’

From birthday parties to dinner with friends to holiday gatherings, getting a shot of everyone at the table usually involves flagging down a busy server or nominating the least popular family member to stop what they’re doing to take an awkwardly angled photo of your entire group sitting around a table. With a 360° camera, you simply put the photo in the middle of the table and click the button when everyone’s all smiles. Think of it as a simpler, spherical, more inclusive selfie.